The Perils of Being a Big Stack Arts Organization (Updated)

I have gotten jumped on before for comparing artists to poker players, so I hesitate to jump into that stream again but it seems like most people have gained some insight from the analogy.

So in that spirit, let me introduce a new poker concept to you.  For the person that bought you Dead Money, I now present Big Stack.

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Alright, let's start with the obvious.  The objective of a poker tournament is to win all the chips available.  So if 1,000 people enter a tournament and each one is given $3,000 work of chips, that means the big winner is going to be the person who collects three milion chips.

Let's assume this tournament is going to last for five days.

By the end of the second day you'll have a few poker players with a very large share of the chips compared to everyone else.

We call those people Big Stacks.

What most poker players will tell you is that being a Big Stack is one of the best and worst things that can happen to you in a poker tournament.

It's a great thing because you control such a large share of the resources (chips) available that you can easily impact what all the other poker players around you are doing.

But it's a very dangerous thing because having all these chips makes you a huge target.

In fact, one of the things that seperates consistently successful poker players from those that are not is there ability to both acquire and keep a big stack.

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Whenever I think about some of the large regional theatres that have come under a lot of criticism lately, my mind always goes back to the Big Stack analogy.

I mean here in Chicago, that's what the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare and other theatres are right? 

They control a huge amount of resources in the theatre world and that makes them (fairly or unfairly) a target.

But I think part of the reason I can't muster the righteous anger against them that some others can is because I understand the flip side of being a Big Stack.

I can't imagine how challenging it is to be the artistic or business leadership of those types of institutions.  So while I truly believe that many of them should be paying their artists more, I also understand many of the reasons why they feel like they can't do that.

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So where am I going with this?

I worry that the looming battle between artists and institutions is going to be waged on a battlefield in which both sides are woefully ignorant about what life is really like on the other side of the fence.

I can imagine a team of artists storming the gates screaming "more money now!" while some Executive Director inside the theatre is looking at a budget he can barely balance and developing a healthy bit of hatred for the artists who don't have a clue about what the situation is.

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So let me offer my perspective as someone who works in regional theatre and has a pretty decent knowledge of the "inside" financial scene for a lot of regional theatres.

I would wager that 80% of those theatres agree that actors should be paid more.

The question for them is how they can manage to do that when they have tremendous fixed costs and incrediby artistic standards they have to meet.

It is not as simple as "pay the actors more".

I'm sorry.

It just isn't.

Think of this way.  When a sports fan complains that his favorite player didn't make the All Star Team in a particular year . . . the question becomes, what player should they take off the team in order to put your player on?

So if actors are being paid more, then who gets paid less?

And if your answer is "raise more money then nobody has to get paid less" then I can introduce you to 1000 fundraisers out here who would love to hear your ideas about where that extra money could come from.

If we are really going to reform the regional theatre system then it is going to be done in partnership with the theatres.  And partnerships can only be achieved through a level of mutual understanding.

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Update:  One last thought . . .

If artists want to campaign for a bigger piece of the pie, more stability, or whatever then please understand that your fight is only partially with the arts institutions.

Your bigger fight is with the donors that fund the instituions.

I would guess that 90% of the funding that instiutions get from foundations and corporations are restricted to costs NOT related to overhead (i.e. actor salaries).

Comments

[Scott Walters]

Adam -- The argument isn't about paying actors more money, the argument is about stability, about hiring actors for more than a one-and-done production. And in the case of the Goodman, who's gonna get paid less? Let's start with the AD and the MD.

[Adam]

Scott,

Wait . . . the argument isn't about money?

Because I have sure heard it come up often! :)

And as for paying the ED and AD of the Goodman less . . . let's pretend we live in a world where you cut their salaries without prompting them to immediately quit.

Let's presume that the ED makes 180,000 and the AD makes 200,000. Now let's cut those salaries in half.

That gives us an extra $190,000 to go around. Now let's say we give that all to the actors.

On an average year the Goodman uses maybe 7 actors per performance on average and does about 10 productions a year. So we take those 70 actors and divide up the 190,000 to them.

Each one gets an extra 2,800 a year. Is that really changing things?

[Dennis Baker]

Why does the ED and AD deserve to be paid $180,000 and $200,000? I would hope the goal would to have everyone working full-time to earn enough money to be able to live. Not get rich, which if you are making $180,000-$200,000 a year you are rich.

[Don Hall]

Scott -

All of your arguments ultimately come down to money. Gimme a break.

Dennis -

That certainly is the goal for some but not really the goal of funders. Funders, generally speaking, don't really care if the organization functions altruistically or with a sense of genuine equity - they just want their names on the door of a "major institution."

[RLewis]

"Your bigger fight is with the donors that fund the instituions."

I'm not really seeing that. Isn't this why actors have unions? Isn't it their job to secure better rates for their members? If the institution books a non-union show/actor then isn't it up to that show's management firm to negotiatate a higher rate? Not only have you confused me on who the "us" is and the "them" is, but now I wonder who the "your" is.

Also, donors do not come up with the budgets that the ED (and ED approved board members) signs off on. Most of these org's operate on deficit spending anyway, just like our govt, and when they want to give the people a $600 stimulus, it just goes on that borrowing side of the ledger. The expense side goes up; no one gets cut. More often than not, institutions raise money based on need demands - create the need and then go hat in hand to fill it. If ADs and EDs don't ask for more money for artists, donors will not just anticipate their needs.

[Adam]

Dennis,

Couple of points.

1. This is Chicago, $200,000 grand doesn't make you rich. Upper middle class maybe, but not rich.

2. I think the ED and AD of the good could argue that spending years (in the ED's case decades) with an instiution and helping to building it to a major theatre force is worth a six figure salary.

3. But regardless of whether you agree that it's worth it, my point is that is what they are currently making.

There is exactly zero chance that they are going to agree to significant pay cuts. I know I wouldn't if I were in their position. The market rate has been set. Their salary is set.

So to me the primary question is how do we make the case to donors that they need to introduce new dollars into the arts that are earmarked for more artist salary support?

[Scott Walters]

Adam -- Would that we COULD pretend it was $180,000 and $200,000, because that is a drop in the bucket compared to what they actually make. Find their 990. I believe the actual numbers are about $400,000 and $325,000. As far as market rates are concerned, this is kind of a greed-is-good argument, isn't it? Yes, that's "the way it is." The question is: is that the way it should be? I say no. That there should be greater equality.

However, I like your second argument, because it is precisely the argument I have been making, and so has Mike Daisey: that building an organization over a period of years is important, and that is why actors should also do that. They should have committed, long-term contracts.

And that is the crux of the matter, much more than the size of the salary is the length of the contract, the commitment of the theatre to the actors. Such a commitment doesn't cost more, ultimately, than shipping in NY actors and housing them for their gigs. And if you can figure out alternative ways to use actors who might not be cast in a particular show, ways that also bring in money for the company, then you can have a larger pool of money. But this would require artistic directors to break out of the "900-channels-of-cable" mindset and not feel that you have to have the exact ideal person in every role. Sort of like just about every great theatre throughout theatre history did. Shakespeare wrote for a small number of actors -- he didn't go through an Elizabethan cattle call looking for "just the right" Hamlet. He used what he had, he used his imagination, he used his talent, and it all worked beautifully.

[Dennis Baker]

Don - True funders just want their name on the door, or in Daisey's point name on the door of the bathroom. I think this goes to the idea that there needs to be a mind shift that the people in the theater are more important than the theater building itself.

Adam - I would agree with you, but I also know that if a couple (my wife and I) could live in LA for FAR less than $200,000 and make it. That means one person in Chicago who makes between $180,000-$200,000 is living financially WELL above all the other people on his/her staff.

To continue the mind shift change mentioned above (and by Scott) all the people hired for the theater organization need to be valued as people and not just cogs to the machine. True not everyone will be paid the same, but it would be interesting to take the top US theater companies and see what the ED/AD are making verses the artists and technicians. In most cases the artists are barley able to afford rent while I am sure the ED/AD have a plush 401(k).

It doesn't have to change, we can still go on giving ED and AD upwards of a quarter to half a million dollars while watching the rest of the theater staff not able to afford to have a family, social security, or any types of savings. Because in the current society community is sacrificed for the sake of capitalistic gain. And that is okay because we have been functioning in a capitalistic society for a good amount of time and the theater has "survived" for this long.

[Mick Montgomery]

I wonder about a bigger picture question connected to the idea of 'paying actors more'.

What would a 'fair' wage per year for an actor be? Or What do we feel it to be?

I know many actors working regional theater making barely $20,000.00 a year and they are considered successful in their region.

I know some actors blessed with solid positions with resident companies making $45,000.00 a year, and that is successful in their region.

However, I know a person today performing 8 shows a week on Broadway, and she can't afford her own apartment.

Should actors make as much as say... a teacher? Or should they make as much as a waitress... or a lawyer or doctor?

I wonder...